Google gives $700K to Israeli disabilities technology initiative

Major Google grant to Tikkun Olam Makers part of plans to improve lives of 250,000 people suffering from disabilities.

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JTA, 14/04/16 14:25

Google HQ in New York

Serge Attal/Flash 90

Google will grant $700,000 to an Israel-based initiative aimed at producing technology to help people with disabilities.

The search engine giant’s grant to Tikkun Olam Makers, or TOM, was announced Tuesday as part of the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities campaign.

Google’s funding will “underwrite TOM’s plans to support a global movement of innovators creating extremely affordable solutions to neglected needs of people with disabilities, with the goal of improving the lives of 250,000,000 within a decade,” according to a statement from The Reut Group, the Tel Aviv-based nonprofit think tank that started the initiative.

Tikkun Olam Makers holds three-day innovation marathons in which engineers and technologists come together to invent products for people with disabilities — like a bionic hand and a walker that helps disabled people climb stairs. It claims to have created 120 product prototypes since 2014.